Took a little work, but the spark of human willpower was ultimately able to overcome the stubborn resistance of technology, and the video from our science/religion debate at Caltech on Sunday is finally up. Michael Shermer and I took on Dinesh D’Souza and Ian Hutchinson. Short version: we won, but judge for yourself if you want to sit through all two hours.
The Great Debate: "Has Science Refuted Religion?"
YouTube comments — always an enlightening read — seem to be mostly about Dawkins and Hitchens, although I don’t remember either of them being there.
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Honestly, I don’t think there has to be any debate. I am a planetarian/science educator, and a Christian youth pastor. I think any conflict comes from when one side tries to explain the other. In my view, understanding the scientific processes that govern our universe does not mean there is no God. Conversely, believing in God does not give us a free pass to say “God did it,” without acknowledging the scientific processes involved.
Religion makes claims which can be tested. All of them eventually fail any test
Such ‘debate’ is noncupatory. Cogent counterarguments to ‘Science’ are not available.
Models involving gods are apparently not well-formed; at their cores, they aren’t even wrong.
Beau, do you see any hand of “God” in planetary formation? As far as I can tell, natural processes explain formation of our Solar System fairly well. Same can be said for us as humans and theory of evolution. It explains in great detail how we got to this stage as a species. Where is God in all of this? To me, the idea of “God” has shrunk (due to our knowledge) to the point of insignificance.
God is often invoked to explain phenomenon we are aware of but don’t understand at a given time (e.g., a volcano, the Big Bang, consciousness). My question: is the later really shrinking or growing?
I don’t necessarily agree that this is a good reason to invoke god, but my point here is that god will not necessarily “shrunk (due to our knowledge) to the point of insignificance” at any time in the foreseeable future.
Vlad, you illustrate what I’m trying to say exactly. Everything can be explained through natural scientific process. I don’t think the world is only 6,000 years old. I also fully accept evolution and natural selection. However, how does understanding how these processes work negate God? My views are also not popular with a lot of the people at my church. The example I use with them is human birth. Science can fully explain the process of how sperm meets egg, cells divide, and a child is born. Knowing that doesn’t take away from the beauty of life. And for those that have faith and believe they were created by God, it’s a way to show them that even a creator God uses natural processes that can be explained scientifically when creating.
Dinesh D’Souza was allowed to desecrate the Caltech campus? What is the world coming to?
Quote: “The start of the D’Souza phenomenon came in 1995, when he published The End of Racism. Written to ride the wave of books and articles that called for white America to get over its racial guilt, it included lines like the “American slave was treated like property, which is to say, pretty well.” It was so sloppy and unconvincing that it killed the genre for a few years; it’s a 700-page doorstop by a one-time AEI scholar that no one cites today. The next D’Souza implosion came in 2007, with the publication of another book that killed its genre. The Enemy at Home consisted of an argument that the “left” was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. That was an irresistible hook for a publisher, especially after the public had turned on the Bush administration and the war on terror. But D’Souza made such a hash out of it that the people who had danced around the left-and-9/11 idea realized how deeply stupid it was. Victor Davis Hanson joined the mob and pointed out, as politely as he could, that D’Souza’s enemies list was “nonsensical.””
from
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2010/09/newt_is_nuts.single.html
by David Weigel.
While there are many interpretations by religions of how long ago things happened, or even HOW they happened in some cases (Moses parting the Red Sea comes to mind), there is nothing to prove God doesn’t exist. Now, I don’t know if “God” exists or had anything to do with the creation of the universe. I believe that there is no true scientific proof that there is anything called “God”. Belief in God is an emotional construct, while science doesn’t address emotional issues (except that there are scientists trying to understand how and why we experience emotions).
I know what true skeptics want – rock, solid proof of something, or at least some proof. Just a little something that smacks of something before they will even begin to think something is true. The problem skeptics have with those who have religious beliefs is that the religious don’t have what scientists would call anything but anecdotal evidence of God. “Faith” doesn’t prove anything to a scientist who is a skeptic (even though some scientists have religious beliefs). Religious faith is anathema (I use that word deliberately) to many scientists, some of whom are atheists, while science can be more easily accepted by people of religion, because, inherently, science itself does not refute God.
SCIENCE DOES NOT REFUTE GOD. That’s really, in my opinion, where the problem is. It is SKEPTICS who refute GOD, and they do so because there is no proof. I will get back to this in a few paragraphs.
There is nothing proving that all laws of science WERE NOT created by God, and there is nothing but a couple of books and strong faith by most people in the world that indicates there might be a God.
I think that many religious individuals fight science because there are some people of science who personally attempt to refute their religious beliefs.
If I recall correctly, our knowledge of the universe and how things work, and the evidence thereof, has been wrong a lot. My guess is that it has been wrong more than it has been right. It appears to me that we are in the process right now of determining that some of Einstein’s theories were not correct. We KNOW they are not complete.
Yet, many times in the past, skeptics and many scientists have held very strongly that their evidence proves that some universal property exists, only to be proven wrong a few centuries, or decades, or even just a few years later. They had rock-solid (wait for it…) FAITH that their evidence was correct. They were wrong, but they held what could be construed as a religious faith that they were right. In my opinion, they turned their science into a religion. I think that happens quite a bit.
One difference between scientists and those who are religious is that true scientists will, eventually, admit they were wrong when new evidence proves them wrong. The reason for that is that true scientists believe that the truth exists and science will eventually find it. Those who are religious require a catharsis before their beliefs can be shaken. It is a point of contention for true scientists. A scientist cannot just accept that, just because the human eye is complex and we don’t understand yet, the eye was created by God. Not understanding something doesn’t mean that we can say, “so God made it”. Scientists believe, as do I, that we will eventually understand everything about the human body and how it works. Therefore, the statement, “so God made it” is useless, because it doesn’t explain anything in concrete terms.
Scientists aren’t willing to stop looking for answers just because they believe in God.
So, here’s the rub. Let’s call scientists “Democrats” and very religious people who are not scientists or, at a minimum, don’t accept science, “Republicans”. (Remember, I am speaking in generalities here! You could also call them “Greens” and “Purples”.) When we do that, maybe we can see that most arguments between one side and the other are EMOTIONAL issues. All arguments that become heated are EMOTIONAL issues. They break down into, “I am right and you are wrong”.
That is the rub.
Why don’t skeptics just say, “I don’t find any compelling reason to believe in ‘God'”? Why don’t those of religion who feel that science is a futile endeavor just say, “what you’re doing doesn’t make sense to me, because God created all of this, but it’s OK if you want to pursue it as long as you don’t tell me I’m wrong”?
Why does anyone in this conflict have to be wrong? It seems to me that we would all be better off if we just said, “Well, what you are saying in my mind isn’t necessarily true, I can respect the fact that you think it might be, especially since I don’t have any proof you are wrong”.
After all, isn’t that the true truth?
The weakness of the religious side is that evidence is not based on the scientific method and for same reason it fine to support the existence of the supernatural and God on hearsay , anecdotal writings and witness accounts. Hutchinson would never apply this criteria for his job but for everything else , no problem. Their version of evidence would support any claim from ufos to unicorns to fairies. If I saw a miracle , it must be a miracle. It is amazing that the religious side can not understand that what can not be explained now, would eventually most likely be explained by some scientific theoretical framework based on knowledge we know now. Dinesh D’Souza does not understand that science actually does understand how a body works so we do know what happens after death and they do have a few good ideas of how universes created from quantum fluctuations to cyclic universes. The god gap also is no explanation for where the laws of physics came from . Great debate. Religion never has a leg to stand on.
Or this:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/09/obama_derangement_syndrome
Caltech standards must be really falling for them to invite a Dinesh D’Souza. Dredging the bottom of the barrel, it is called. As an alumni, I’m really disappointed.
Yeah. I know. My therapist has labelled me “idealistic”. I know that what I said above isn’t likely to happen in my lifetime. I’ll eventually get over that, possibly even before I die. I just really wish we humans were more accepting of each other.
@Arun, you are an alumnus, assuming you are a male. “Alumni” is plural. (Unless you are a clone, in which case you are correct and I am not.)
^^^What if I am in two minds? 🙂
Heh! That’ll work!
Hi Sean,
I’ve watched a lot of these debates and based on how clear and concise your first 2 speeches were, I’d love to see you participate in more of these. In Ian’s first response, he weakly didn’t address anything at all that you said (they were all badly directed to points Michael had made), and as usual Dinesh was completely void of any real content – he only has this vague ‘charming’ appeal to people who already have their mind made up. Also, some of the things that Ian said were quite frankly embarrassing. “Do you folks think that people in the 1st century Palestine were ignorant of the fact that water turning into wine just doesn’t happen?” Yeah, right, people 2000 years ago definitely wouldn’t have been more susceptible to believing the claim that some guy rose from the dead, as opposed to people living in this day and age! Isn’t it interesting that there aren’t any new religions that arise nowadays that have this dogma at their core? It would never get off the ground these days.
I thought the questioning format the debate took after that was pretty bad, it would have been a lot better if it was more open.
One thing I’d like to know is, when theists invoke God as the first cause of the universe type argument, why don’t athiests on the opposing sides ask them how the hell it is that they get from that god to the one of christianity who cares about human beings? There is just no logical connection at all between these 2 things (I’m sure William Lane Craig has some convoluted philosophical reason, but you know what I mean :)).
Anyway, you should do more of these!
Cheers,
Chris
Unfortunately, I agree with the statement that the question before the panel was poorly conceived. No rational person would disagree that one cannot disprove (or refute) a negative. Perhaps a more useful question might have been “For or Against – Religion offers something necessary to human society that we can acquire through no other means.”
I’d vote against that proposition.
Regarding the likelihood of modern humans to be more skeptical of “miracles” I’d have to say that as a percentage of the population I’m not sure you can make a strong case. Between people who send money to Nigerian scammers, witch hunts involving disappearing genitalia in Africa, efficacy of magic bracelets, etc. you might be able to prove otherwise.
FYI: a quote from Swami Vivekananda –
“”The first sign you are becoming religious is that you are becoming cheerful. When a man is gloomy, that may be dyspepsia, but it is not religion.””
Sean,
You did a great job in the debate! You definitely had the most coherent and logical arguments of anyone in the debate – IMHO.
Although not your doing – I did not particularly like the format with the debaters posing questions to each other. It was all very predictatible – each side would try to use a line of questioning that would lead the other side into some sort of logical contradiction based on their answers. The time was too limited and I would rather have had more time given for statements and rebuttals.
I look forward to hearing more from you on the subject – though I know you must grow tired of endlessly arguing against the fallacious assumptions and arguments given by religious apologists.
Take care,
Jim
Miracles. Miracles, as the speaker himself identified, are events of low probability. Science tackles this issue quite successfully.
But he puts in his argument another weakness-the historical versus the empirical evidence. If the water were turned into wine(or the other way around), and this event were reported by eye-witnesses: 1) how many reports were there 2) did all eye-witnesses saw the exact same thing 3) did all participants in the event were saw awed that left only one record of said miracle 4) did an eye-witness taste said drink to ensure that it is indeed wine and not koolade. People are historically shown to not be very observers and to disagree about things that were not physically present at an event over which they are arguing. So would historical documents be taken as 100% truth or as a document of possible evidence. What if the recorder was a perpetual lier. We don’t know because nobody ever kept a record on him for us to judge. We can assign a probability that he is telling the truth, that he is polishing, that he is completely bananas.
On the other hand we have the universe which seam to be quite souless. Its evidence is free of judgement and free of pre-judgement. It just does what it does. And we may as well live with it.
Religion was born out of ignorance and grew into fear. It was a tool needed to control large masses. People had fears when they lived in small groups but they didn’t need the tools of organized religon because they didnt have the need or the conditions for hierarchy in the social pyramid. Once larger groups of people formed there came out the need for organization. Its like a crystal, you give it a little sample and all the atoms arrange in even if a skewed lattice. Society is organized in the same way and the core was religion, and different core configurations gave rise to different fears and different ignorances, the organzational pyramids of people were differently skewed. Nothing wrong with that, if we recognize that this is what happens historically and that this is what is still happening and that we do need order just that we do not have to govern ourselves on the platform of fear and on the platform of superiority. Our lives are insignificantly short and at the very best we may as well try to live as well as possible for the seconds that we have. Our time is so short that it is completely wasted by insuding fear and be fearful.
Our knowledge of science can make our existence better but it can also hurt us. The same as with our fascination with the God. Science at least gives us some confidence that we have events that happen more often than others and we can rely on that to accomodate our wives. We cannot say the same about God. What is the high probability even that he informs us of? There is nothing of high probability that God tells us about. He tells us about hell and heaven, but do these occur, if I don’t have evidence how would I know if death and moving to one of these regions is indeed a high probabiity event, 100% probabilit event.
Having by chance stumbled on that Vivekananda quote, here’s some more:
http://www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info/reminiscences/022_hm.htm
Haripada Mitra’s “REMINISCENCES OF SWAMI VIVEKANANDA”
I asked Swamiji one day whether the instruction of Shri Krishna to Arjuna, just on the eve of the battle of Kurukshetra was a historical event. What he said in reply is very charming:
“The Gita is a very old book. In ancient times there was no such fuss about writing histories or getting books printed; and so it is difficult to prove the historicity of the Gita to men like you. Still I see no reason why you should rack your brains about the truth of the event recorded in the Gita.
Even if somebody were to prove to you with incontrovertible facts that the Gita represents the actual words of Shri Krishna as told to Arjuna, will you really believe in all that is written in that book?
Should even God Himself incarnate and come to teach you, you will challenge Him to prove His Divinity, and you will apply your own arguments to disprove His claim. So why should you be worried about the authenticity of the Gita? If you can, accept as far as it lies in your power the teachings of the Gita and actualize them in your life. That will be a real benefit to you.
Shri Ramakrishna used to say, ‘If you happen to be in a mango garden, eat as many of the luscious fruits as you can; what need have you to count the leaves? It seems to me that any belief or disbelief in the events recorded in a religious book is determined by a personal equation. When somebody falls into certain circumstances and finds that his condition is similar to some incident mentioned in the book concerned, he believes that the incident must be true; and then he eagerly adopts the means prescribed by the book for tiding over the difficulty.”
—–
and
“One day he said some very fine things about religion and yoga. I shall reproduce the substance of these as far as I can: “All creatures are ever eager to get happiness. They are eternally engaged in this effort, but they are seldom seen to arrive at the goal. Yet most people do not stop to find out why they fail to. That is why men suffer. Whatever ideas a man may have about religion, nobody should try to shake his faith so long as he himself sincerely believes that he is deriving real happiness thereby. Even if one tries to rectify, it does not yield any good result unless the man himself cooperates willingly. Whatever the profession may be, when you find that a man is eager merely to hear of religion, but not to practise it, you may at once conclude that he has no firm faith in anything.
The basic aim of religion is to bring peace to man. It is not a wise thing for one to suffer in this life so that one can be happy in the next. One must be happy here and now. Any religion that can bring that about is the true religion for humanity. Sense-enjoyment is momentary, and it is inevitably mixed with sorrow.
“Only children, fools, and animals can believe this mixed happiness to be the real bliss. Even so, I won’t mind if anybody can have perpetual happiness and freedom from anxiety by holding on to that happiness as the be-all and end-all of life. But I have still to find a man like that. Rather, in common experience, it is found that those who mistake sense-enjoyment for the highest bliss become jealous of others who happen to be richer or more luxurious than themselves. They suffer from their hankering after that kind of more refined sense-enjoyment. After conquering the world, Alexander the Great felt miserable at the thought that he had no other country to conquer. That is why thoughtful men, after long experience and examination, have decided that men can be really happy and free from anxiety only when they have full faith in some religion or other.
“Men naturally differ in so far as their intellectual equipment and attainments are concerned. So religion also must differ according to men’s temperaments; else they will never have any satisfaction from it, nor will they derive the highest benefit from it. The religion that will suit any particular nature has to be found out personally by the man concerned through a process of careful thinking, testing, and experimenting. There is no other way. Study of religious literature, instructions of guru, company of holy men, etc. can only help him in his quest.”
Using Isaac Newton in an agrgument against religion seems a little ironic to me.
“Science is not all the real knowledge there is, scientism is an /unproven/ presumption.” I reckon Hutchinson doesn’t realize that to prove something means to use science, logic. How are you supposed to prove that everything in nature can be proved? As expected, the believer side was obnoxiously hostile… hiding their insecurities behind the condescending attitude, so I give Sean Carroll and Michael Shermer props for being so patient and friendly. Team Science did great 🙂 Very nice video, thanks for posting!
Ive seen a lot of atheist/religious debates and I have to say Sean you really represented our side far better than anyone else Ive seen. Great arguments, articulate and likeable, please do more, In particular you need to take on WLC, most atheists do not do well against him, but I think you would put him in his place very easily.